Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Answering questions from GoodReads.com

I responded to the initial author questions
on GoodReads.com. Check out my answers below or on their site, and feel free to add your
own question. No spoilers, of course! I appreciate everyone who reads my work,
and welcome the opportunity to interact with you. Thanks for your interest!

How do you deal with writer’s
block?

I
don’t have a great answer for getting out of “writer’s block,” but I try to
avoid it with a couple techniques. I have to credit Rachel Simon, with whom I
was fortunate enough to have a couple of tutoring sessions years ago, with the
first. She suggested stopping for the day before running out of ideas to be
able to get started right away (or at least much more quickly) the next day.
Obviously, there’s a bit of a balance in doing that—you wouldn’t want to stop
when you’re on a roll—but the tip has been helpful. Another technique I use,
which might be an offshoot of the first, is to write notes on what I’m thinking
in the middle of a good run of writing. As a writer with a physical disability,
my typing speed can be a little slow. My mind can get way ahead of my typing.
So at times I’ll just space down several lines in Word and leave a note about
where I want to go with the scene I’m working on. It might also be a line of
dialogue or a specific line of the narrative that I know is five, ten, lines
away. This helps trigger the rest of what I was thinking.

What’s the best thing about
being a writer?

Writing
that first draft of a story that I’ve fallen in love with and keeps me busy for
months . . . before I have to deal with showing it to people I respect (or even
to evaluate it myself) to see if I have something worthwhile. That escape from reality,
the feeling that you’re creating something (or at least think you are!) is the
joy of writing. Without it, I’d never even think about trying to write.

What’s your advice for
aspiring writers?

I’m
probably still in that category, but I would say, love the process.

What are you currently
working on?

Promoting
The Birth of Super Crip while praying
it finds enough of an audience to write what I hope is the next in the series
about Red O’Ryan.

How do you get inspired to
write?

I
think it’s just “there” if you like to write. But I think the best movies or
books that I enjoy are those that make you want to write. They sort of stir
your creative juices. If that counts as inspiration, I guess that’s my answer.

Where did you get the idea
for your most recent book?

The man whom I guess would be considered my mentor suggested years ago
that I always keep a character with a disability in my stories. His suggestion,
a desire to write something fun (versus the blogging I was doing), and landing
on Iron Man way too many times on cable, combined with a commercial for Agents
of SHIELD that ultimately turned on a “light bulb” in my mind that
eventually lead to Red. Ironically, I still thought of him as a character who
happened to have a super power versus a superhero, if that makes sense.